Ubuntu and Debian on Hetzner

installimage is the normal way to put Ubuntu Server or Debian on a Hetzner dedicated machine. You boot Rescue, choose an image, set disks and RAID, then reboot into a clean OS.

Which OS to pick

	Debian	Ubuntu Server
Feel	Stable, conservative	Newer packages, same apt family
Rescue	Rescue itself is Debian	Installed from the same installer
Later hypervisors	Closest match for Proxmox	Fine for Incus; Proxmox prefers Debian

Current Hetzner images are listed inside the installer. Names look like Ubuntu-2404-noble-amd64-base or Debian-13xx-trixie-amd64-base.

Interactive install

Activate Rescue and SSH in.
Run installimage.
Choose Ubuntu or Debian.
Edit the config: drives, SWRAID, hostname, PART / LV lines.
Save (F10). Wait until it prints that the system is bootable.
reboot. SSH again. Root password is the Rescue password until you change it.

Installer

root@rescue ~ # installimage

Example: two disks, RAID1, LVM

Typical Hetzner layout: two same-size disks, software RAID1, small boot partitions, the rest in LVM. RAID1 keeps the server up if one disk dies. You get the capacity of one disk, not two.

installimage config (edit to match your drives)

DRIVE1 /dev/nvme0n1DRIVE2 /dev/nvme1n1SWRAID 1SWRAIDLEVEL 1BOOTLOADER grubHOSTNAME dedicated.example.comPART /boot/efi esp 256MPART /boot ext4 1GPART lvm vg0 allLV vg0 root / ext4 50GLV vg0 swap swap swap 8GLV vg0 var /var ext4 all

Note

SATA disks are usually /dev/sda and /dev/sdb. NVMe disks are /dev/nvme0n1 and /dev/nvme1n1. Comment out a DRIVE line with # to leave that disk alone, and renumber DRIVE1, DRIVE2.

Example: one disk, no RAID

Single drive

DRIVE1 /dev/sdaSWRAID 0BOOTLOADER grubHOSTNAME dedicated.example.comPART /boot/efi esp 256MPART /boot ext4 1GPART / ext4 all

all means “the rest of the disk”. Put it on the last partition or last logical volume only, or nothing is left after it.

Unattended installimage

Save a file, then run the installer without the menu:

Config file install

root@rescue ~ # nano /tmp/setup.confroot@rescue ~ # installimage -a -c /tmp/setup.conf

If Rescue finds /autosetup, it uses that file automatically.

After the first boot

Update and set a new root password

root@dedicated ~ # passwdroot@dedicated ~ # apt updateroot@dedicated ~ # apt upgrade -yroot@dedicated ~ # dpkg-reconfigure tzdataroot@dedicated ~ # timedatectl

Tip

Add your SSH public key to /root/.ssh/authorized_keys before you turn off password login. Test a second SSH window first.

Install everyday tools

root@dedicated ~ # apt install -y sudo vim htop tmux curl ca-certificates

Partitions larger than 2 TiB

Use GPT (GUID partition table) and GRUB2. installimage does this for modern Debian and Ubuntu images. Old MBR layouts cannot address huge disks.